


Shouldering the Responsibility

by MFM



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Comfort, F/F, Massage, dia is STRESSED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24819016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFM/pseuds/MFM
Summary: As student council president of Uranohoshi Girls' High School, Dia Kurosawa has taken it upon herself to fulfill no end of menial tasks for the sake of the school and its student body. As much as she recognizes the necessity of her job, at times even she gets overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work expected of her.And as much as she insists she should do it all on her own, sometimes she gets help from the most unexpected people.
Relationships: Kurosawa Dia/Takami Chika
Kudos: 33





	Shouldering the Responsibility

The student council president of Uranohoshi Girls’ High School sat alone in her office, the orange glow of the setting sun the only illumination allowed to her. Most every inch of the room was as spotless as her record would lead one to believe, but the contents spread about her desk told another story entirely. Forms from clubs, faculty, and students alike covered every centimeter of the desktop, ranging in importance from budgetary concerns to petty personal affairs. The laptop in front of the black-haired girl only compounded the information overflow, countless unrelated tables strewn about its monitor in total disarray.

Dia had laid her head on the desk for a moment of rest, looking for any way to shirk her mountain of responsibility for even a nanosecond. However every time she moved her head a table she didn’t recognize entered her vision, only adding to the wealth of responsibilities thrust upon her. She had even tried screwing her eyes shut a few times, depriving herself of any way to perceive the work around her, but that instead caused the memory of every graph she had already seen to invade the inside of her eyelids all at once.

Quickly realizing her chances of respite were slim-to-none, she resolved herself to finish all that she could. With all the rigidity of the walking dead she lifted her head once more, sweeping stray locks of hair out of her face. Her gaze encompassed the entirety of the pile of obligations before her, and she couldn’t stop what felt like the world’s longest sigh from escaping her lips. Nevertheless she gripped the pen that she’d previously let roll to the edge of the desk and started to absorb the nearest paper she (was pretty sure she) hadn’t looked at yet.

In spite of the squalor that had consumed her moments prior, the third year was able to quickly find a rhythm that made the tasks before her halfway approachable. She still didn’t believe she would finish any time soon, that realization making her breathe a second sigh only marginally shorter than the first, but she figured that so long as she could work without any interruption the next few hours would be plenty productive for her.

An interruption came not twenty seconds later, a slow knock on the office’s door jolting her right out of the rhythm she had just discovered. Resisting her first instinct to fling her pen across the room, Dia remained silent, awaiting further inquiry from whoever stood on the other side of the door. Following a short pause, that inquiry came in the form of another rap on the door and a low voice asking, “Dia? Are you in there?”

Work-addled as her brain was, she didn’t immediately recognize the voice, it taking a moment for her to register it as Chika’s. Clearing her throat and doing her best to adopt the authoritative tone her junior expected of her, she answered, “Come in.”

The door slid open with far more care than Dia expected of Aqours’s leader, and as the girl in question stepped through the doorway, the visage of her gaudy workout clothes provided Dia much-needed relief from the flood of monochrome on the desk. Suddenly vividly aware of the humidity of the room, the orange-haired girl fanned herself with her hand, trying to be inconspicuous about it and doing the worst possible job of that. She quickly stopped upon realizing how conspicuous her attempts were and asked, “Is the student council work going okay?”

It was a question she already knew the answer to, able as she was to observe the mess of papers that still covered most of the desk. But there was a stark difference between observing how busy the student council president was and her admitting to it, and Chika knew from experience that the latter step was no mean feat.

“Not very well, unfortunately,” Dia responded, forcing the best smile she could muster in that moment.

The resulting shock on the second year’s face was apparent, enough so for her senior to pursue, now with a lighter smile, “Is it that much of a surprise? I’m not a robot, you know.”

“Sorry,” Chika stated, laughing and rubbing the back of her head. “I just didn’t expect you to admit to it so readily.”

Remembering herself, Dia snapped her gaze back to the tasks still before her, and as she resumed shuffling through them, she asked, “How about practice today?”

The energy Chika had been doing everything in her power to restrain surged back in her all at once. Her eyes lit up, and she leapt nearly the whole length of the office to the student council president’s side. “It’s going great! Ruby brought in drafts for the costumes for our next concert, and they all look sooooo cute! And of course when she saw hers Yoshiko was all like ‘This will be a fine vessel to allow me to convert more little demons to my cause,’ and then-“

The realization of her own insensitivity hit the Aqours leader like a sack of bricks, and she practically bit her own tongue to shut herself up. Glancing down at the form her senior was currently transcribing, she asked, “Sorry, that’s probably not the kind of thing you want to hear right now, is it?”

Dia's focus on her work left her reaction delayed, but as she processed the question she shook her head in protest. At first she thought that to suffice for an answer, but as she noticed her junior’s confusion from the corner of her eye she queried, “Why wouldn’t I want to hear about the efforts of you and all the other girls?”

Looking away and with the slightest pang of guilt in her voice, Chika explained, “Well, it makes it sound like we’re having all this fun without you, and I wanted to help you with all this work, not make you feel worse.”

“Help me how?” the student council president asked, the skepticism in her voice only slightly outweighed by genuine curiosity.

The second year grabbed the nearest piece of paper and was about to explain how she could help with filling out forms, but as she took a closer look at the page, the dizzying amount of information contained therein was quick to silence that thought. Scrambling for any other suitable answer to the question, she stumbled over her own words a few times before uttering a defeated sigh and mumbling, “I didn’t think this through I’m sorry.”

Dia couldn’t help but giggle before stating, “It’s fine. You’ve been doing a fine job of helping me, anyway.”

Once more Chika tried and failed to mask the disbelief in her expression. “How?”

The rhythm that the third year lost before had long since returned, her eyes and hands moving between paper signage and computer entry with frightening efficiency. Within that rhythm she searched for an opportunity to explain without breaking her own concentration, and the instant she did she asked, “Do you know why I work so hard as the student council president?”

No verbal answer greeted her ears, but when she noticed her junior shake her head, she explained, “It’s for the sake of Uranohoshi and all of its students, because I love seeing the fruits of their labor.”

Starting to understand her senior’s point, a smile crept up the sides of Chika’s face, but nevertheless Dia continued explaining, finishing as she met the orange-haired girl’s gaze, “What better motivation could I ask for than hearing how the fruits of those labor play out?”

“You mean it?!” Chika exclaimed, grasping the black-haired girl’s hands in her own. The instant she did she noticed how tense the other girl’s grip was, and although she said nothing about it, she slowly started to run her thumbs along Dia’s palms.

Although the third year found the gesture embarrassing, she didn’t vocalize those thoughts. She instead sat in silence for a couple seconds, enjoying the gesture to the fullest for the scant few moments she could. Finally to break the silence she replied, “Yes, though I can’t exactly work with you grabbing my hands like this.”

The second year forced a chuckle, easing her hold and sliding her hands away. “Sorry about that,” she said, suddenly at a loss of what to do with her hands.

In spite of having just told the other girl to let go, Dia had to resist the temptation to grab her hands in turn, instead redirecting her attention back to the pile of work still before her. A silence started to settle between them, but before it had the opportunity to take root, Dia prompted her junior, “So, what were you saying about Yoshiko?”

“Oh, right!” Clearing her throat, Chika resumed, “So Yoshiko gave her fallen angel schtick, and immediately Hanamaru was like ‘Yoshiko, we’re idols, not a cult, zura.’ And then of course Yoshiko said–“

“ ‘It’s not Yoshiko, it’s Yohane!’ ” The two girls imitated the first year as one, Dia’s interjection shocking Chika enough that the former was able to continue with a chuckle, “That certainly does sound like them. I wonder if they ever get tired of it.”

“I know, right? Anyway then the other girls all started pointing out the cute details in their outfits and changes they wanted to see made, and of course the first idea You had was she wanted her outfit to have one of those little hats.”

“That’s certainly on brand for her,” Dia said with a chuckle. “I sure hope she and the others don’t end up overworking my adorable little sister, though.”

Chika shook her head vigorously. “She’s super up to it! She was listening super hard to everything the other girls said and bringing up ways she could incorop– incopperate– incoop–“

“Incorporate,” Dia quietly corrected.

“Yeah, that! Ways she could incorporate their suggestions, and then after all that she was like ‘Okay, I’ll do my Rubesty!’ ” Chika punctuated her imitation with a recreation of the redhead’s trademark pose, earning another small laugh from Dia.

“I’m glad,” the third year stated, taking a brief break from her menial data entry to stretch her shoulders. “What about Mari? She was supposed to help lead practice today in my absence, wasn’t she?”

Quick to notice the other girl’s discomfort, the leader of Aqours glided about the desk, moving to stand behind her chair. The awkward chuckle Chika gave in response to the query told Dia everything she had to know about Mari’s capabilities as an instructor, but nevertheless she elaborated, “Yeah, but I think she mainly just wanted to goof off. Kanan had to spend as much time correcting her exercises as she did helping us with ours, and she kept making jokes about how training was over every few minutes.”

“I should have expected as much,” Dia groaned, momentarily perplexed by the younger girl’s movement across the room but not bothering to question it. “I guess I should finish this work quickly so I can make sure everything goes more smoothly next time.”

“It wasn’t all bad, though!” Chika protested, placing her hands on Dia’s shoulders, much to the latter girl’s surprise. “We all started brainstorming the choreography for the next song together, and that was going super well. We might even be able to start practicing it tomorrow!”

A light smile formed on Dia’s lips, but before she could form a proper response, she felt the hands on her shoulders now start to massage them, digging their fingers into her skin and running up and down her shoulderblades. The black-haired girl heard Chika humming as she started the physical therapy, and as much as she liked the sound of the song, she felt the need to ask, “Chika, what are you doing?”

A yelp escaped the girl as she wrenched her hands away, suddenly aware of what she had been doing and a blush eclipsing her face. “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” she said, keeping her arms awkwardly outstretched in the space between the two of them. “I got used to doing this kind of thing at the ryokan, and you just looked so tense so I–“

“It’s alright, Chika,” Dia reassured her. “I’m not mad, I was just taken off guard.” A blush crept up her own expression as she continued in a mumble, “In fact, I wouldn’t mind if you continued.”

Although the blush on the orange-haired girl’s face intensified, the grin that she now wore overpowered it, and she declared, “Of course!”

As Chika resumed the massage she simultaneously continued to regale her fellow Aqours member with the escapades from practice that day. Dia listened in near-silence throughout, offering the occasional interjection or acknowledgement but otherwise focused entirely on the work still before her. Her underclassman’s efforts made that possible, her massage and soothing voice allowing the third year to tackle the task with renewed energy. So effective was Chika’s aid that Dia entered a trancelike state at some point without realizing; she briefly wondered how she had ever gotten any work done without the other girl’s help.

But as she worked and the orange-haired girl spoke all about their other friends’ misadventures, a stray thought infiltrated her head. Initially just a niggling wonder, it quickly grew to the point that it prevented her from focusing on the work before her, and so she asked, “Chika?”

“Hm?” the other girl grunted, slowing the movement of her hands.

“Why _aren’t_ you at practice with the others?”

“I was worried about you,” Aqours’s leader stated, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

The pallor of the student council president’s face gave way to pink once more as she muttered a thanks, but she was quick to regain her bearings and clarify, “But how did you sneak away without arousing the others’ suspicion?”

Chika gave a noncommittal shrug in reply. “I just told them I was running to the bathroom real quick.”

That answer floored Dia, totally breaking her concentration as she attempted to formulate a response to it. Her brain ran in overdrive trying to explain as clearly as possible how poor of an excuse that was, but no matter how much she thought no verbal response could do her befuddlement justice. As such, she decided on a different approach, repeating, “Chika?”

“Hm?” the other girl grunted once more.

Dia turned in her seat, looking Chika directly in the eye. At least, that was where Chika thought she was looking at first, before realizing she was actually looking past her. The second year turned her head to follow her senior’s gaze, and she was quick to notice the window behind her.

And the pitch blackness right outside of it.

“Ah,” the orange-haired girl vocalized.

It took her a precious few more seconds to connect the dots.

“Ahhh!” the orange-haired girl yelled, and as if on cue her phone buzzed. She was quick to pull it out and was greeted by a message from Riko, who was yelling at her to hurry up before she missed the last bus. Sprinting out the room, she shouted as a farewell, “Sorrydiaihavetogo!”

Dia would be lying if she said the sudden exit didn’t sour her mood just the slightest bit, but she had no time to dwell on that. Both because she had to head home as well, and because not five seconds later Chika came sprinting back to the doorway. She took a few seconds to catch her breath, an opportunity which Dia took to ask with a half-smile, “I thought you were in a hurry?”

“I’m really sorry for just bolting like that!” Chika answered instantly, putting her hands together and bowing. The gesture caused the black-haired girl’s eyes to widen ever so slightly, followed by her smile doing the same, both minute changes Chika didn’t notice as she continued, “But I’m glad we were able to hang out today!”

Dia wasn’t as sure she considered today “hanging out,” but she decided the exact wording didn’t quite matter. “Yes, it was quite relaxing,” she agreed, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“I’d love to do this again sometime!” Chika immediately replied, her apologetic countenance giving way to a grin.

A blush flared up on Dia’s face for what felt like the hundredth time that evening. She forced out a half-hearted cough, but that didn’t do half as good a job clearing her mind as it did clearing her throat. Nevertheless she was able to form something resembling a coherent reply, telling the other girl after a second’s pause, “I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

Dia presumed her junior was satisfied with the response from her grin growing ever wider, though her lack of verbal response wasn’t helping the third year’s embarrassment. The protracted silence that followed dragged out longer than the rest of the evening up to that point, and Dia attempted to think of anything she could say to break that silence. Thankfully Chika had no such issues forming a response, telling her senior as she turned away, “Anyway, I’m sorry again about that! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

With that the orange-haired girl took off once more, her arrhythmic footsteps gradually fading and giving way to dead silence in the student council office once more. Dia looked down at her desk once more, now so much neater she found it hard to believe it was the same desk she’d been working at just a few hours prior. She still wasn’t quite done, but her mountain of responsibility no longer had nearly as steep a summit. 

One by one she gathered all her supplies before rising to her feet and taking a few long strides to the doorway of the office. Before departing her gaze lingered back on her chair, and she placed her left hand on her right shoulder. It instantly struck her how much less tense her shoulder felt; she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so light. Cracking one more smile, she turned once more and left for home.

Perhaps more days like today would be a nice change of pace, she mused.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote half of this while in a downward spiral of anxiety at 1 AM so uh hopefully the quality of the prose doesn't reflect that
> 
> I left this open-ended at the last second on the off chance I ever want to do a follow-up even though I have zero plans for one oops.


End file.
